Matching Tracksuits

Why am I no longer interested in studying literature? Is it simply that I don’t understand most of it, particularly contemporary poetry? Perhaps, but regardless of whether I understand it or not, it all feels so fake to me, so much like a game. The rules of the game are simple: Make nice flowery language that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in particular; make nice vague language that sounds nice but doesn’t necessarily many anything. It’s as if poets are not writing for people but for other poets. Even the criticism and analysis of poetry seems as if it’s coded for poets. I read descriptions of poetry and it tells me nothing. I understand what the words mean, but I don’t see how you can possibly describe poetry in that way and it mean anything. In that way, poetry critism is its own form of creative writing. No one simply says, “This is what the poet is getting at,” but the critic must turn her essay into a prose-poem itself.

Take for example Christian Wiman’s essay in the January 1997 issue of Poetry. He says of Heaney’s “The Harvest Bow,” “The poem has an equable, utterly accomplished feel to it, a pleasing sense of formal fulfillment and completed experience.” Or comparing Heaney’s work to Ruskin’s “sacred laws”: “Both are as yet unrealized, but they are not merely illusory expectations; the promised revelation is implicit in the work at hand.” Of course I am taking these quotes completely out of their context and not even supplying the poems about which Wiman is writing. All the same, while I understand what each word means, the sentences themselves tell me nothing about the poems. In what sense are they “unrealized?” How would an “utterly accomplished feel” differ from a “partially accomplished feel?” Indeed, what would be the opposite of “an utterly accomplished feel?” The words sound nice; they sound academic and deep; but they don’t tell me anything.

The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry is filled with examples of empty and meaningless description. J. D. McClatchy, the editor, writes a brief biographical introduction to each poet, but when he sets about describing the poetry, he often loses me. He introduces Mora Van Duyn by saying, “Her intellectual balance, as well as her preferred narrative and formal strategies, serve to heighten the ordinary (what she calls the ‘motley and manifold’), and control the bizarre.” What exactly does he mean by “intellectual balance” and how does this manifest itself in Van Duyn’s poetry? He describes Robert Penn Warren’s later poetry as “craggy.” This tells me nothing.

Some of McClatchy’s description makes sense, but seems to be more than a little overstated. Concerning J. V. Cunningham, he says, “Though small in bulk and scope, Cunningham’s work is honed to a mordant precision of style and feeling.” I read this, and I have no idea what he’s talking about. Even after I read Cunningham’s poetry, I think, “How does McClatchy mean this is ‘honed to a mordant precision?’” Not all of Cunningham’s work is filled with the biting sarcasm implied in “mordant precision.” And once again, what would the opposite be?

It is not as if McClatchy writes entirely like this. About May Swenson’s work he says that she “relies on wordplay, odd viewpoints, unexpected juxtapositions, and puzzling riddles.” That tells me something; it gives me an idea about what to expect concerning her poetry. He describes Richard Wilbur’s work as being “grounded in a detailed observation of the natural world.” I read that I come to anticipate many physical details in his poetry.

I believe this style comes directly from the forms used by poets when they write about other poets. Robert Lowell wrote to Theodore Roetke and said, “One of the things I marvel at in your poems is the impression they give of having been worked on an extra half day.” What does that tell me about Roethke’s poetry? About Anne Sexton Lowell wrote, “Her gift was to grip, to give words to the drama of her personality.” The latter half I understand, but what does he mean, “to grip?” To grip what?